The Bag
by thekatthatbarks
Summary: "I left you last week," Kakashi tells her in the middle of breakfast one day.


"I left you last week," Kakashi tells her in the middle of breakfast one day.

He can picture how her eyes go wide at the words along with the hitch in her breath like she choked on the air. He can't look at her though, not while he tells her this. He picks a scratch on their kitchen table and doesn't take his eyes off it.

"I'd been planning it for weeks. I had a bag packed with three sets of clothes; enough for me to travel for a few days but not too much that you'd notice the dent in the laundry. It had been under our bed for a week and I was just waiting for the perfect time to slip away. I'd even put a jutsu on it so you wouldn't see it if you ever looked under the bed for some reason."

The air was thick and heavy and Kakashi himself felt like choking on the air. She was silent across from him and the quiet was so loud his ears felt like they'd gone out.

 _Why was he telling her this?_

"It was Tuesday and you'd just gotten back from that long mission and you were so tired, Sakura. I knew you wouldn't wake up until way past lunch. It was plenty of time. I got out of the bed at six o clock in the morning and grabbed the bag, then left without a glance back at you."

 _Maybe it was the guilt. Every time he looked at her and she looked back at him like he was the love of her life. She thought he could never hurt her and she was wrong._

"I snuck over the wall, making sure no one ever noticed me. I made it all the way to the next three villages over before I stopped."

He paused for a moment, still staring at the scratch. Sakura had picked out this table with Ino when they'd decided to move in together. He'd told her he had no clue how to decorate a home and she'd dragged him along from store to store to pick out everything. When she realized he was just going along with whatever she wanted, she stopped taking him and took Ino instead. He remembered being thankful for it; to not drown in all the patterns and loud colors.

He had liked everything she got, they had a beautiful home. But now all he could think about was how he'd never realized their kitchen table had specks of blue in the wood.

He must've paused too long, because Sakura eventually prompted him with a guarded voice, "Then?"

He finally tore his eyes away from the table then and looked up at her. She'd been crying silently, her cheeks stained with tracks of salty tears and her eyes red. Her expression was hard though and unwavering as she waited, her eyes never leaving his face.

It was too much, and he looked away from her. "I came back."

"Why?"

He didn't answer her, and she demanded with a rougher tone, " _Why_?"

He abruptly stood up from the table and threw his arms out helplessly. "Why does it matter, Sakura? Wouldn't you rather know why I _left_? Don't you want to know how I could leave you after three years of being together? How I could coldly plan out abandoning you? How I did it when you were sleeping? How I didn't even bother to leave you a note?"

She stood up, too, and crossed her arms over her chest. "No, I don't. Why did you come back, Kakashi?"

He was breathing hard at this point, his heart racing and his head pounding. He looked at her incredulously, his chest aching as she stared at him like he was a petulant child. He'd always been able to read Sakura, but in that moment, she wasn't giving anything away.

"It was almost lunch time," he choked out.

She raised an eyebrow at him. "I was going to wake up."

He nodded and swallowed thickly. _How could he…_

"You were going to wake up and I wasn't going to be there. You wouldn't have thought anything of it." He let out a short breath and gave her a small bitter smile. "You would have just gone about your day. Made something here to eat or go out with one of your friends. Maybe go by the hospital and see where you could pitch in even though it was your day off. Invite Lee to go out training. Then, maybe you'd see Gai or Kurenai and ask them if they'd seen me. They hadn't. You'd start to get a little worried. Maybe stop by the Hokage Tower and see if I'd been assigned a mission. They'd tell you no and you'd go home to make dinner, thinking I was just out training by myself. I wouldn't come home for dinner – "

Something got caught in his throat and he stopped midsentence. He was vaguely aware that he was about to break into a sob, but he fought it. Sakura's face had softened, and her body relaxed. She was looking at him in understanding and it was throwing him off.

"You would worry and wouldn't be able to sleep. Then, you'd go looking for me and..."

He squeezed his eyes shut, reliving in his head every step he'd taken that day, every imprint he'd made in the ground with the weight he'd carried.

He didn't know how long it was before he felt her grip his arm. He almost jerked away from sheer guilt, but her fingers clutched at his sleeve and he wouldn't have got very far anyway. She finished for him, "I wouldn't have found you."

He opened his eyes and looked down at her, telling her without a doubt, "No. You wouldn't have."

She nodded, a couple more tears escaping her eyes and running down her cheeks. She believed him. If Kakashi didn't want to be found, he wouldn't be.

After a minute, she stepped away from him and Kakashi felt a rush of cold go through him. She told him with a shrug, not looking at him, "You ran away."

"Sakura, I – "

"You didn't leave me, Kakashi. _You ran away_." There was a spark in her eye and while she was angry at him, he could still see that _understanding_ there. It scared him, that someone could know him so deeply. It was cliché, but she knew him better than himself.

"I don't want to give you excuses, Sakura." It was true. He didn't want to do that, nothing he could say could ever make up for it. That he was terrified. A _coward_. An old man with the emotional capacity of a teaspoon. That how much he loved her was overwhelming and kept him up at night. That he couldn't sleep when she was away on missions. That sometimes he slept on the couch because he was worried he'd hurt her in his sleep during a nightmare. That she was more of a home than the apartment they shared. That he was terrified he was going to mess _this_ up all the while _wanting_ to. Because he couldn't live if he lost her. He loved her too much. _She_ was too much.

He didn't need to tell her all that. She probably knew all of it anyway.

Sakura stared at him for a minute, her eyes unyielding until she eventually glanced at their half-eaten breakfast and she nodded her head. "Your food's going to get cold."

"Sakura – "

She cut him off with a look and he sat down obediently at the table but made no move for his food. She joined him and took a large bite of her eggs, then waved her fork at him without looking at him. "Tell me. Tell me what made you come back and we don't have to talk about this ever again."

Kakashi was a selfish man. He should've stayed gone but he was weak, and he'd crawled back to her. He wanted her to be angrier with him. He wanted her to tell him she could never forgive him, to go repack his _bag_ and leave without another word. Maybe a punch or two. Maybe she could throw him through the wall to hit the side of the adjacent building and crack a few ribs. Maybe she could cuss him out and have a break down in their middle of their kitchen, asking him _how he could do this to her?_

But she wouldn't do any of that. A part of him had known she would react like this. She loved him unconditionally. A selfish part of him couldn't help but be relieved and he latched on to the chance to put this behind them. The guilt was there, that self-hatred. It would probably always be there, and he would just have to live with that part of himself too. He'd be better. He'd try harder. He'd have to because he didn't know what to do with himself without her.

"It hurt, each step I took away from you. It felt like I couldn't breathe, and my heart _ached_ for you. I thought if I got far enough away, it'd be easier. But it only got worse. I missed you and you wouldn't leave my head. I remembered how you'd smile at me and I could hear your laugh ringing in my ears. Then, I started thinking about you crying, about you sobbing in our bed, clutching at my pillow and sleeping on the _wrong_ side. It was so… painful I wanted to cut my heart out. To think I'd be the cause of such pain for you. I had the thought that if I stayed away from you any longer, I'd die of heartbreak. So, I came back. I came back and I burned my bag in the middle of a training field. Then, I went home to find you still sleeping and crawled into bed with you."

Sakura took a shuddering breath and swallowed her food slowly. "You don't have to be so dramatic."

"I'm not," he told her without a trace of humor.

She looked up to meet his eyes and after a second, she smiled. It was small and more than a little sad, but it was _there_. She nodded her head and straightened back up in her chair. "Okay."

Kakashi watched her for a moment, as she took a drink from her coffee and went back to their breakfast like it was a normal morning. She spared another smile for him, this one a little more affectionate and it gave him hope that they could go back to how they were before he brought all of this up. It wouldn't be any time soon. But maybe this time, it would be even better.

He took a steadying breath and repeated her, "Okay," then went back to his cold food as well.

She never said another word about it, except for later that night as they laid in bed. Her back was to him and she promised him quietly against her pillow, "If you leave me again, they'll never find the body."

He wanted to laugh but settled for smiling against his own pillow with his fingers itching to reach out for her. He repeated her again from earlier, no doubts about her threat, "Okay."

He finally let himself reach out to grab her shoulder. She tensed for a split second and he almost pulled away, but then she relaxed under his touch and he pulled her closer to him. He held her against his chest and she let out a content sigh as his arm wrapped around her.

 _He didn't deserve her. But he couldn't leave her, and she wouldn't leave him._


End file.
